Cult Suicide Developments

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Cult Suicide Developments

Marshall Herff Applewhite, identified as the leader of the Heaven's Gate cult involved in this week's mass suicide near San Diego, California, sent a videotape and letter to a Michigan minister that detailed the group's plan to leave "the bodies that we were wearing for our earthly task."

A news assignment editor there said reporters obtained the tape and letter from Rik Strawcutter, a minister in Adrian, Michigan, about whom the station had produced a story on a separate matter.

The items were mailed to the Strawcutter. He turned them over to a TV station in Toledo, Ohio, on Wednesday. Within hours, the tape was being played on national television.

"By the time you receive this, we'll be gone - several dozen of us," a letter that accompanied the tape said.

"We came from the Level Above Human in distant space and we have now exited the bodies that we were wearing for our earthly task, to return to the world from whence we came - task completed. The distance space we refer to is what your literature would call the Kingdom of Heaven, or Kingdom of God."

Thirty-nine people died in the mass suicide in the northern San Diego County town of Rancho Santa Fe. Applewhite's body was reportedly among the dead.

A lawyer for the house's owner, Sam Koutchesfahani, said the group had told Koutchesfahani there were chapters in Arizona and New Mexico and that before moving into their last lodgings in October 1996, they had rented from a doctor in nearly Fairbanks Ranch. Koutchesfahani saw the tenants as recently as Sunday, when they offered to trade him a computer for one of his children.

In the recent tape, a shaven-headed Applewhite, who was known as "Do" by his followers, delivers an infomercial-style lecture and urges people to "follow quickly."

It also depicts several followers, including one woman who is shown in an outdoor setting apparently discussing her decision to follow Applewhite's suggestion and end her life.

"Maybe they're crazy for all I know," she said. "But I don't have any choice but to go for it, because I've been on this planet for 31 years and there's nothing here for me.

"And they were saying to the person I was with that they felt the last, final ingredient would be for the vehicles to be dead, you know, what humans call 'dead.' And so I said, 'Great. You know if that's what it takes, that's better than being around here with absolutely nothing to do.'

Other developments in the case:

Authorities investigating the case said during a nationally televised press conference Thursday that the deaths were meticulously arranged and carried out over a period of as long as two days by teams of group members garbed in black shirts, pants, and athletic shoes.

San Diego County Medical Examiner Brian Blackbourne said the 39 Heaven's Gate cultists - 21 women, 18 men, and all but seven over 40 years old - died in three separate groups on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. He said some of the bodies found Wednesday afternoon in the Rancho Santa Fe mansion had been dead from 24 to 36 hours, others appeared to have been dead for as long as three days.

"It seemed to be a group decision," Blackbourne said. The act "seemed to be very well planned," he said, pointing to the "immaculate" nature of the death scene and the fact the group had apparently been organized into teams. He said the victims apparently died in separate groups: 15 the first day, 15 the second, and the remaining 9 the third day.

Blackbourne said no certain cause of death had been determined. He said results of first four autopsies showed the presence of alcohol and phenobarbital, a lethal combination in high enough concentrations. Blackbourne also said there were indications

Investigators found a scrap of paper in the residence that apparently contained a recipe for a combination of drugs that would prove lethal to the victims.

"The paper said, take the pudding or apple sauce, eat a couple of tablespoons to make room for the medicine, stir in the medicine, then eat it fairly quickly and drink the vodka," Blackbourne said. The note then advised those who ingested the mixture to lay back and relax.

The InterNIC registrations of the Web sites run by the cult members bore fake names and addresses, but InterNIC doesn't mind: it got paid. The www.highersource.com site was registered on 12 August and was last updated 12 November, which means it went through a complete payment cycle. InterNIC spokesman Chris Clough says someone paid the bill for that site as well as for the www.heavensgate.com site, which was last updated on 28 February. Clough was surprised at the notion of someone faking their identity on their registration, but, he said, "We're not in the business of verifying where people live." Anyone can register a domain, he said, "as long as they send their payment in on time."